AUTHOR'S NOTE(S): Hello, all. Welcome to this cesspool of insanity, excessive fanservice, inane humor, and a general lack of respect for reality and its laws thereof. There's also a plot in there somewhere, along with just about every Star Fox character and OC that has appeared in my various stories, including a salty asexual Renamon tsundere. In addition, there are possibly hundreds - I've lost count by now - of references to other media, among other things.

So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

Oh - and a brief disclaimer: any resemblance to current or recent events is almost certainly intentional.


Arc I: The Aquas Informant

Part 1: The Assignment

The sound of twin helicopter blades buffeted the air, pulsating and shaking the craft's interior. Fox held his eyes closed, not wanting to know the extent of his injuries resulting from a massive explosion that also claimed the lives of his teammates. Part of him held out hope that at least one of them had survived, but he knew better than to believe that anyone other than himself could have lived through the inferno that reduced a cutting-edge skyscraper to dust in mere seconds.

With his eyes shut, he listened to his surroundings. He heard the chopper's pilot and co-pilot conversing with each other at the front of the craft, although the tumultuous rumbling of the overhead rotors prevented him from hearing anything clearly. Closer to him, however, he noticed the sound of boots pacing the metal floor. For a moment, he opened his eyes and noticed a leopard wearing a dark blue Cornerian officer's uniform. He tried to close his eyes without the officer noticing, but he failed.

In under a second, the feline knelt next to Fox's medical gurney and prodded his arm. "I know you're awake, McCloud."

Fox groaned. "Yeah, but I wish I wasn't. What am I doing on an army chopper, anyway?"

"Someone had to evacuate you from the scene of the blast," the officer replied. "You may be a mercenary, but you were given your assignment from General Pepper himself, and we're honoring his request to treat you like one of our own. You're on this chopper because the general has scheduled a meeting with you and several other high ranking officials from the Cornerian Defense Force."

Attempting to sit up, Fox took a deep breath and shook his head. "Isn't it a bit soon for that? I'm not even sure I can walk."

"The doctors cleared you before the chopper left Northpoint Beach. You suffered a concussion and a few skin lacerations, but you'll be fine with a few days of rest."

"I definitely don't feel like I'm going to be fine," Fox groaned. "What happened at Northpoint, anyway? All I remember is that I was leading my squad out of the building, when it suddenly blew up for no reason. Now that I think of it, I'm having a hard time remembering why I was in Northpoint to begin with."

The feline officer stood up and braced himself on Fox's gurney as the helicopter shook. "I'll give you the short version. As you know, the tension between Corneria and some of the rebel factions in Fortuna has been getting worse over the course of the last year. Yesterday, it all came to a head near the border of the two countries along the coastline. You and your unit were sent into Northpoint after the Fortunan rebels detonated an EMP weapon in the city center and then attacked the city itself. The city defense was successful, but at great expense to our own troops. Now, about the building – I have no idea why that explosion happened. We're investigating the incident, but we don't know anything about it right now. You should just be grateful that you survived with only minor injuries. I'm sorry to say this, but the rest of your unit bit the dust. That includes your fiancée, Fara."

Fox's eyes widened. The thought of his squadmates raced to his mind, but Fara took priority over them. For a moment, he lay in silence, stunned and horrified at the news. Then, he rolled onto his left side and let out a quiet sob that he hoped the officer wouldn't notice. Wiping his eye with his shoulder, he returned to his resting position and asked him, "Did you recover the bodies?"

"We only found three of them. The other four are unaccounted for, but their positions at the time of the blast make their survival a virtual impossibility."

Fox sighed and clenched his teeth to avoid crying. "Dammit - I knew some of those guys for over seven years! Was...was Fara's body one of the ones you recovered?"

The feline gave him an uncertain look in response. "No, but we are all but certain that she..."

"Stop talking. I don't want to hear it."

The officer's words ceased, reducing the number of sounds to the duo of cacophonous rotors overhead. "I'm sorry, but sometimes we all have to hear things we don't like."

Fox's eyes could have shot out fire. "I said stop talking. How would you like it if you woke up to hear that your wife was dead and that some of your closest friends were blown to hell? Huh?"

The cat frowned and turned to the side. He wanted to shoot back at Fox, but in spite of his bruised ego, he knew that he had nothing useful to say to the wounded vulpine.

Noticing the officer's silence, Fox changed the subject of the conversation. "Do you know why General Pepper wants to talk to me specifically?"

"No, I don't. That information wasn't given to me. I'm sure you'll find out soon enough."

Fox sighed. "I was just wondering."

When the officer said nothing in return to him, Fox closed his eyes again, partially out of a desire to avoid having to converse with the feline and partially to disguise the tears that threatened to spill out of his eyes. Only two months ago had he proposed to Fara Phoenix; yet she had already been taken from him long before their wedding ceremony even reached the planning phase.


- § -


Twenty minutes later, the helicopter reached the boundaries of Kepler Air Force Base, the largest military installation in the entirety of the Cornerian continent. Peering through the tiny sliver of the front window that he could see, Fox laid eyes on the base's towering central structure – a monolithic monstrosity of a building covered in reflective, blastproof glass reflecting the most advanced construction methods available to the Republic of Corneria. An oversized landing pad on the roof awaited the chopper, which slowed its rotors and floated to a stop in the center of the black pad. The pounding of the overhead blades came to a slow decrescendo as the feline officer next to Fox helped him off his medical gurney.

He found himself dressed in the same clothing that he had worn during his failed mission, which gave him some consolation about the state of his injuries. His right leg flared up in pain as he set foot on the chopper's metal cargo floor, but he managed to walk out of the helicopter under his own power and climb down the large vehicle's left landing strut. Standing on the base's roof, he stared out at the metropolitan expanse that stretched as far as the eye could see. Gleaming skyscrapers punctured the crystalline blue skies, towering over the smaller buildings surrounding them. Fox recalled that Corneria City registered as the most vertical city on the planet Lylat. More than fifty million residents called the megacity their home, including Fox himself. As the feline officer led him towards a set of doors built into the side of the building at the edge of the landing pad, he thought about his own apartment, where he planned to go after his meeting with General Pepper.

Two canine guards stood on each side of the double doors ahead of him. When the officer escorting Fox neared them, they pushed the doors open and led their guests into the base itself. Clean, synthetic plastic surfaces made up the majority of the base's interior that looked tidier than any military base Fox had been acquainted with before. The building's outside wall was transparent in every way, allowing him to observe the grounds surrounding the base while feeling the safety of the reinforced synth-glass, engineered to provide the same amount of structural support as metal or rebar.

Fox and his escorting officer followed the two base guards to a blue-colored door on the left side of the hall. The two canines stepped aside and backed against the wall on opposite sides of the door, allowing the feline officer to pull it open and lead Fox inside. Compared to the light level in the naturally-lit hallway, the expansive boardroom Fox found himself in seemed oppressively dark. Given a moment, however, his eyes began to adjust to the dim lighting inside the room, which sported a white color scheme with blue accents reflecting the colors of the Cornerian flag. A massive, oval-shaped table sat in the center of the room, although only four people sat around it. At the head of the table near the back of the room, Fox recognized General Pepper's imposing hound-like figure, dressed in his almost-gaudy red and yellow ceremonial uniform. To his right sat an aged raven with steely eyes that stared at him with a commanding intensity as he moved towards the table. Across the table, a bodacious red-furred vixen with flowing, black hair reclined in her chair next to another vulpine, who sat next to General Pepper.

Fox stopped in surprise when he realized the identity of the two foxes on the left side of the table. The vixen, who wore a matte black catsuit outfitted with numerous storage pockets, looked badly out of place in the somewhat formal meeting room. She looked even more out of place when she laid eyes on Fox and blew him a kiss.

"Scarlet," he muttered to himself. A distant cousin of his, the blood red vixen matched him in terms of both age and stature and rivaled him as a freelance mercenary. Although the two stayed in contact in the present day, neither of them knew of each other's existence until they met during a controversial training program initiated by the Cornerian Army. The two interacted well and considered each other mutual friends, but Fox hesitated to take their relationship any farther than that on account of her faint blood relation to him and his engagement to the now-departed Fara Phoenix. Admittedly, the two were distant enough for a relationship to be considered acceptable, but he still felt awkward about the prospect.

The male fox seated next to Scarlet demanded his attention even more than Scarlet did. Dressed in a dark blue officer's uniform replete with a veritable plate of pins and medals, the vulpine pulled his aviator sunglasses from his face and placed them on the table in front of him.

"Dad?"

The older vulpine gazed at Fox and nodded with a sad smile that reflected his sorrow over his son's loss in the Northpoint catastrophe. "I heard what happened to you yesterday. Thank God you're alright. Looking back on some video footage from the scene, I know it's nothing short of a miracle that you're still alive."

Fox nodded grimly and shuffled towards a chair two seats down from the imposing raven seated next to General Pepper. As he dropped into the black faux leather seat, Pepper locked eyes with him and began the meeting. "Thank you for coming, Fox. I normally don't like dealing with mercenaries, but you're in another league compared to most of them. Your father raised you well." He glanced at James and continued, "Fox, the reason you are here is because I have a job that I wouldn't trust to anyone outside the upper echelons of the Cornerian Army. You, however, are the exception."

Fox looked back at Pepper in confusion. "Why don't you just assign military personnel to this 'job', then?"

"Because this job is multifaceted, requiring a variety of skills that most military personnel do not have at their disposal at once. Not only that, but it is also highly sensitive. We are in a dangerous spot politically, Fox. Assigning officially sanctioned Cornerian soldiers to this objective poses a grave danger to our weakening relationships with Macbeth and Titania. Their hostility to us has only increased over the past year; and all intelligence suggests that it may worsen over time.

He paused and cleared his throat. "Then, there is this issue with the East Fortuna rebels. We originally believed that they were nothing more than ideologically driven insurgents who posed little to no threat to the global state in general, but what happened at Northpoint yesterday proved us wrong. Simple insurgents do not have access to city-wide EMP devices. Not only that, but when we started cleaning up the city after the skirmish, we found Macbeth-built guns designed specifically for military use. No one in Fortuna could have come across those unless they had them shipped in from Macbeth itself. All evidence is pointing to the Macbeth military assisting the East Fortuna rebels. I, the Prime Minister, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously decided to launch a counter-attack on the rebel-held territory near the border of Fortuna and Corneria, which leaves very little room for other operations at the moment."

"I assume that's where I come in?" Fox asked, opening his hands.

"Indeed," Pepper replied. "As one of the few remaining graduates of the Advanced Soldier Training Program that took place twelve years ago, you are uniquely qualified for this task, along with Miss Scarlet over there. If my records are correct, she is also a graduate of the program."

Fox groaned. "Sir, I know where this is going. You probably want Scarlet to help me with this job of yours. Well, I know for a fact that she won't do it. I've repeatedly asked her to join my unit in the past, and she's refused my offer every time because she would rather do her own thing."

"Funny," said Pepper. "She agreed to help you long before you arrived here."

Fox gave Scarlet a bewildered look. In response, she simply winked and then turned her attention back to General Pepper as he continued, "We have an independent informant in the Aquas island group who has offered to provide you with his findings and his technological know-how. He's a bit clumsy and awkward, but he's the best person we could find who wasn't affiliated with any government or organization."

"What does he do, then? Is he some kind of hacker?" Fox asked.

"Not exactly, although that skill is certainly in his wheelhouse. He's a former member of a Katinan mercenary company known as Anthracite Security. He wouldn't say exactly why he was terminated, but his skills seemed to speak for themselves. Anyway, there are a few more details that I need to cover with you, but until you agree to the mission, I will go no further."

Fox looked at Scarlet out of the corner of his eye, then shifted his gaze to his father, who looked back and gave him a subtle nod. Returning his attention to General Pepper, he answered, "I'll do it. What do I need to take care of first?"

In response, Pepper allowed a faint smile to cross his muzzle. "I appreciate your willingness to cooperate with us, Fox. Your first task is to fly to Aquas to meet with the informant. Once you do, inform me of your progress, and I will update you on your next objective."

"Shouldn't you lay that out for me upfront instead of baiting me along step by step?" Fox protested.

"Under normal circumstances, yes, but this is a dynamic situation. Your mission can and will change depending on the circumstances of your surroundings. Both you and Scarlet have been trained to be prepared for nearly anything, which is why I'm trusting both of you with this. And of course, your fee has been approved."

Fox nodded in approval. "Is there anything else?"

Silence overtook the table. Then, after a long, awkward silence, Pepper answered, "No. That is all. As soon as you can, set a course for Aquas. Your informant will be waiting for you. Don't worry about the details for now. Those will be provided for you by the time you reach Aquas."

"Understood," Fox replied.

With the meeting completed, General Pepper rose from his seat, followed by everyone else at the table. James left his spot at the table and approached Fox, offering him a handshake before giving him a pat on the shoulder.

In spite of his desire to look collected regardless of the emotional trauma he had suffered after losing his team and his future bride in the Northpoint explosion, Fox struggled to suppress his anguish. With his voice hoarse, he asked his father, "Isn't it too soon for this?"

"Yes," the elder fox replied, "But duty doesn't wait for the pain to stop. I know you'll pull through this, Fox. And don't worry – I'll be available for you to call if you need me. I'm going to be busy with the East Fortuna counterattack, but I'll try my best to be there for you. If you really need emotional support and you can't reach me, you can always call Uncle Peppy."

Fox nodded, shaking his head while his ears drooped. "Be honest. Was assigning Scarlet to this job your idea?"

"Yes," said James. "She may be loose and unpredictable, but I've seen how well you get along with her. You can't deny her skills, either. Look – as unstable as she seems, I know she'll help keep you in check."

"I hope you're right," Fox muttered.

James took a step back and glanced at Scarlet, who approached him and gave Fox a sympathetic smile. "Let's get going, cous. I need to stop at my apartment first, but you can come with me. Have you eaten anything?"

Suddenly becoming aware of his intense hunger after eating nothing since the Northpoint incident the day before, Fox shook his head.

"That's fine. I've got some food at my place. You can take whatever you want. In fact, eat as much of it as you can or pack it up so we can take it with us, because we're probably not going to be around here again for a while." Stepping closer to Fox, the red vixen asked, "Do you still have your team's cargo plane?"

"I still have most of the equipment," Fox answered. "Guns, the cargo ship, two helicopters, the armored utility trucks – almost all of it. All I lost at Northpoint was my team. Heh – it sounds so trivial when I say it like that. None of them deserved to go out like they did."

As much as she wanted to reply with "shit happens," Scarlet bit her tongue and sighed in an act of forced sympathy for her cousin. Truth be told, she did feel deflated from Fox's loss, but she had never been much of an emotional person. "I'm sorry for you, Fox. Come on – let's go."

Scarlet turned towards the exit door, and Fox followed suit, knowing full well that she felt far less sympathy for him that the tone of her voice suggested. In some ways, he wanted to tell her that he would have preferred her to be honest with him instead of offering him an empty consolation.

Minutes later, Fox and Scarlet exited the base on foot and stepped into the civilian area that flanked it. In all directions, gleaming, modern buildings bordered the fresh, black asphalt crawling with vehicles, both personal and commercial alike. For Fox, the ultra-modern metropolis functioned as his base of operations; and as such, the advanced nature of Corneria City was lost on him. Scarlet, on the other hand, spent comparatively little time in the city despite renting an apartment in the downtown area, preferring instead to work outside of Cornerian jurisdiction.

She looked across the street in front of the military base and noted the five-level concrete parking deck where she had parked her car, then glanced at Fox and commented, "You never realize just how far ahead Corneria is compared to the other countries in Lylat. I've been taking jobs in Katina for the last three months, and they've got to be at least thirty years behind this place."

Fox stopped next to a foot traffic light and pressed the button to request the ability to cross the street. "It's no surprise that everyone wants to live here, or so it seems. I guess I kind of take it for granted sometimes."

"I only got back in town last week, so I'm still getting readjusted to it," she replied. "Too bad we're shipping out already. Speaking of that, have you ever been to Aquas?"

The light flashed green, showing the image of a stick man walking. Stepping onto the crosswalk in front of several idling cars, Fox jogged across the road and then turned to face Scarlet as she set foot on the sidewalk near the parking deck entrance. "I spent a day or two there at one point. From everything I've heard about it, it's like Zoness without a stick up its butt. Merc laws are looser, goods are cheaper, and there aren't as many rules in general. It's the place where people who aren't rich like to go on vacation."

"Sounds pleasant enough. Bring your swimsuit if you want to go to the beach while we're there. I know I definitely will," Scarlet replied, a smile on her face.

"Have you ever heard of that saying about not being able to mix business and pleasure?"

"Screw that," Scarlet scoffed. "What's a job if you can't enjoy it? I say as long as it doesn't keep us from getting our work done, we can do whatever we want."

Fox rolled his eyes. "Now I can see why you didn't even last a week in the army after completing the training program."

"Those tight-asses – trying to get me to conform to their ridiculous standards," the vixen replied. "It might work for them, but I can't deal with that crap. To be my best, I need my freedom."

Once again, Scarlet stepped in front of Fox and led him into the covered parking deck before motioning towards the stairwell on the right side of the darkened space where more than a hundred cars rested. A brief climb brought the two vulpines to the third floor. Pushing open the dented, corroded green door marked '3', Scarlet stepped onto the deck's concrete floor and pulled her car keys out of one of her catsuit's utility pockets.

With his eyes following Scarlet's motions, Fox observed, "So, you finally decided that your clothes needed to be functional too, huh?"

Scarlet looked over her shoulders and pushed her hips out in a way that accentuated her shapely, rounded flanks. Her suit's matte gray finish gave her body an enticing, reflective property that pleased Fox's eyes more than he felt comfortable with. "I had this suit custom-built for me a month ago. It's not just eye candy, either – it has seven cargo pockets, a built-in clip for a handgun, and to top it off, it's also lightweight, breathable, and above all, comfortable. This is the warm weather version. I've also got a waterproof one and a cold-weather version. I should hook you up with my designer. She's great."

"I think I'd rather avoid the matte gray finish on mine," Fox replied, giving Scarlet a disapproving glance. "That suit's borderline fetish material."

"That's your problem. Personally, I love it. I've got a few more with different colors in the works right now. Mostly black and gray, though." Giving her tail a quick twitch, she held out her key and pressed the unlock button, causing two flashes of yellow to briefly illuminate the parking deck's back wall. "There it is. We'll go to my apartment first so I can pick up some extra clothes, then I'll let you get whatever you need at your place. Do you even need anything?"

"I don't think so," Fox answered, crossing his arms. "I keep the Great Fox stocked with more supplies than I keep at home."

Scarlet gave Fox a strange glance. "The Great Fox? What's that?"

"Oh, it's my transport's nickname. One of my teammates came up with it as a joke, and I guess I liked it enough to let it stick."

"That's a really dumb name," Scarlet grinned, sauntering over to the source of the yellow flash – a red sport coupe that Fox recognized as a Zoness-built Occela Tipo F. He wondered what purpose Scarlet would have in owning a boutique sports car, but he did not fault her for it. While Scarlet dropped into the driver's seat, Fox opened the passenger door and took a seat next to her. She put her key in the ignition, but did not turn it, even after both doors had been closed. For a moment, she leaned back in her seat and took a deep breath that looked more suggestive than it should have. Then, she glanced at Fox out of the corner of her eye and softened her expression. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I said yes to your dad's offer to help you because I'm starting to get lonely out there. I'm not really into what I think General Pepper wants, but it's been awhile since I got to spend some time with you."

Fox shifted in his seat, his body language giving off clear signs of discomfort. "If you're trying to use me to make up for your own lack of a love life, then I don't want you coming with me to Aquas. I'm not in the mood for it, anyway. My future wife died with the rest of my team at Northpoint. I'm going to need some time to recover before I can move on."

Scarlet turned her body towards Fox. "That's part of the reason your dad asked me to help you. He knows we work well together. He didn't feel comfortable letting you go it alone on this one after what you went through yesterday."

"He was probably right to do that, although he really should have given me more time to regroup," Fox admitted. "There's just one thing I don't want you to do during all of this."

"What's that?"

"Don't try to hit on me. No one in my family would care if we hooked up, but I like what we have right now and I don't want to change it."

Scarlet sighed. "Alright. I can deal with that. It's probably for the better, anyway."